Regulating people out of jobs: Rent-Seekers Shaft the Poor

The Washington Examiner reports:

A study last month by the Brookings Institution found there were "far more cases" in which licensing reduced employment than ones where it improved the quality and safety of services.

The restrictions have resulted in 2.8 million fewer jobs nationally and raised consumer costs by $203 billion annually, Brookings found.

"Occupational licensing tends to reduce aggregate employment growth," said Morris Kleiner, labor policy professor at the University of Minnesota and author of the Brookings study.

Kleiner also found that there often wasn't a correlation between high license requirements and better service. His study noted, for example, that "more stringent licensing of mortgage brokers has no influence on the number of foreclosures, but does lead to higher prices of mortgages."

Licenses do benefit the people who hold them, as their average earnings increase 15 percent. But the benefits are mostly found though in high-paying occupations that require higher education degrees, not lower-income ones.

Rent-seekers shaft the poor.